OK, don't freak out about what comes next. The growing environmental crisis, and especially those determined to do nothing about it, or even outright deny it, is in economic terms the modern equivalent of slavery. Before you report me to the Daily Mail, do hear me out, and please note my emphasis on economic.

The Schumacher Institute completed a pilot of its SocialCapitalist project in Spring 2012. The SocialCapitalist project is based on the idea that during an economic downturn it is not just financial capital that is destroyed.

There are many enemies right now, political and real. Freedom is under threat, and not just from fundamentalists. Those who don't give a name to their ideology, who hide behind non-ideology, or who claim to be post-ideological make an ideological claim just as surely as if they declare themselves to be communists or fascists; and will keep on distracting us with straw men, unwilling to draw a line in the sand, to say - this is what I believe.

Much of the analysis of the British riots is premised on trying to understand how a system of incentives and disincentives could break down so quickly. It seems just as logical to ask the opposite: why did we ever assume the equilibrium being promoted was one of peace, order and rationality?